Saving Money and Reducing Debt

Reader Feedback Request #1: What Are Your Strengths And Weaknesses

I began blogging about my finances April 5, 2005. As the third anniversary of No Credit Needed approaches, I thought I’d do a series of Reader Feedback Requests. I’ll use the answers and comments for ideas for future posts.

3 thoughts on “Reader Feedback Request #1: What Are Your Strengths And Weaknesses”

My strengths are boring, let’s talk about what I’m weak at. Just as a background, we’re on Step 2 of Dave Ramsey’s plan with about 2 years to go before we’re on Step 3, so we are focused exclusively on dumping debt. Now, my weaknesses:

1) “vision casting” – it’s hard sometimes to keep my wife onboard and keep us focused on the longterm; listening to Dave Ramsey’s radio program and following your blog helps a lot
2) sometimes I’m too tight – I’ve been called the “budget nazi” more than once
3) we eat out too much
4) we don’t do a meal plan so we buy “whatever” when we go grocery shopping; our freezer is full of old stuff we need to eat but never do
5) sometimes I get frustrated (internally) – our debt snowball is starting to pick up a little steam, but I want it to go faster; the beginning of the month is always exciting because we get to pay bills (I’m a nerd!), but the rest of the month is “slow” while we wait for our next paychecks.
6) I live in the Disneyland of America – as Dave Ramsey says, sometimes it’s hard to “Live like no one else so someday we can live like no one else.”

I hear ya about learning investing! It seems that people who do write about it are intentionally complex some days I’m trying to learn that as well for when I get to that baby step, and it still seems pretty complex and confusing.